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Atheist · Jul 27, 2010, 09:34 AM

My boot drive in my main computer refuses to be recognized by the BIOS 9 times out of 10. Needless to say, rebooting my computer is a total crapshoot. This is on my relatively new Hackintosh. Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 w/ Intel Core i7-920. The POST screen indicates that it sees 3 hard drive devices (which is correct) but then after about a 10 second pause, it reports that it then only "found" 2 of the 3. If I'm lucky enough for it to boot, the computer runs flawlessly. The hard drive shows no indication of impending failure (as far as I can tell). It's a WD 500GB drive. Here's what SMARTReporter has to say:

Code:
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       46
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   195   170   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       5233
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1730
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000e   200   200   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   074   074   000    Old_age   Always       -       19170
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0012   100   100   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   100   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       574
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       464
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1703
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   104   087   000    Old_age   Always       -       46
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       11
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   195   186   051    Old_age   Offline      -       375

I've already ordered a replacement drive and I've got a Time Machine backup as well as manual backups of my critical data and Virtual Machines. I'm obsessive about backups.

I've changed which port the HD is connected to as well as change the cable, all to no avail so it really seems like an HD issue. I'm just curious if anyone has any insight into why, when it does get recognized, it works just fine.

reader50 · Jul 27, 2010, 12:42 PM

The WD500 may be taking a hair too long to spin up. Alternatively, is it the oldest of the 3 drives? If your power supply is near capacity, the oldest drive probably needs the most juice on startup.

Atheist · Jul 27, 2010, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by reader50

The WD500 may be taking a hair too long to spin up. Alternatively, is it the oldest of the 3 drives? If your power supply is near capacity, the oldest drive probably needs the most juice on startup.

It is the oldest of the drives... this problem just recently started. There is a setting in the BIOS that has to do with a hard disk delay... maybe increasing that will force it to wait longer for the drive to spin up. Next time I have to reboot, I will give it a try.